Many Americans are marking this first anniversary of the Jan. 6 insurrection by making much ado about the 725 arrests the FBI has made. Except this is rather like passengers making much ado about the many buckets of water the crew were bailing from the Titanic …
No doubt, given those arrests, Americans should be feeling reassured that would-be insurrectionists have been deterred. But polls indicate that this first anniversary finds Americans more fearful than ever that their country remains vulnerable to a similar insurrection, or worse.
Frankly, they need only look to the “slow-motion coup” Republicans have been executing since Jan. 6 to justify their fears. It refers to the brazen array of Jim Crow 2.0 tactics Republicans have been deploying, which make the tactics white supremacists deployed to suppress the civil rights of Blacks during Reconstruction look, well, civil.
Most notably, Republicans have enacted laws in keys states that codify Trump’s Big Lie about election fraud; empower state legislatures to overrule election results; make it difficult for Blacks and Hispanics to vote; and allow Republican candidates to effectively pick their voters via newly gerrymandered districts.
Here is how Salon summed up these tactics in a report on October 27, 2021:
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Taken collectively, all of these moves by Trump and his allies represent an unmistakable and potentially life-changing assault on democracy, now under threat from a man and a party who seek to establish an authoritarian autocracy. …
Americans are left with a dramatic choice: Save democracy by rejecting Donald Trump and his Republican comrades, or allow them to run roughshod over our hard-won democratic principles and institutions by completing their coup — which now appears to be a runaway train.
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As it happened, though, I presaged, and then duly decried, these tactics in commentaries like “WTF: Trump-Led Insurrection Against US Expanding to All 50 State Capitols…?” January 12, 2021, “Podcast: Online Comments and the Fate of Democracy” July 13, 2021, and “J6 Insurrectionists Lost this Battle, but They’re Winning the War…” September 22, 2021.
This is why I fear any further comment risks the proverbial beating a dead horse. Therefore, I shall end this tribute with two equally ominous observations:
I
Evangelical Christians – who form the base of the Republican Party – seem to have more faith in lies and conspiracies these days than they ever had in scriptures and prayers. Nothing betrayed this quite like the way MAGA supporters booed Donald Trump recently for telling the truth about Covid vaccines.
Trump convinced them that November 3 was the “real insurrection day” and that Jan. 6 was just a peaceful “day of protesting fake election results.” (PBS News Hour reported last night that nearly 90% of Republicans believe Jan. 6 featured heroic patriots fighting to defend American democracy…) But now even he can’t even convince them to take a vaccine to save their own lives.
So “who ya gonna call” – if Jan. 6 plays out again…? Because polls indicate that millions are willing not just to storm government buildings but to die doing so. And this, for the lost cause of Making America Great Again – even if their cult leader ends up being a Trump wannabe (like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis) instead of that two-legged orange calf himself…
II
With respect to that slow-motion coup, well, here is what I warned in “Podcast: Online Comments and the Fate of Democracy” July 13, 2021:
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The ultimate showdown will come when Congress convenes in January 2025 to count the electoral votes and certify the presidential election of 2024. What do his voter-suppressing MAGA pawns – who are now passing laws to rig elections in red states across America – think is going to happen when they attempt to present their trumped-up electors? Do they think bona-fide electors from blue states are just going to roll out the red carpet…?
Civil War II: Red States vs. Blue States! And, trust me, just as Trump himself dodged the fight on January 6, no Trump will be among the idiots fighting this war for his cause either. Oh, and Biden, not Trump, will be Commander in Chief; so, in the immortal words of Inigo Montoya, prepare to die, suckers.
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Enough said?
Except that I’m constrained to note that those MAGA pawns can be forgiven their delusion, especially given the delusion their cult leader displayed this week.
No doubt you’re aware of the big show Trump made of announcing his intent to hold a press conference today. He clearly intended it as counterprogramming because this delusional man-child really thought all news media would rush to cover his narcissistic stunt down in Florida instead of the official Jan. 6 tributes up in Washington. But when someone finally explained that was not going to happen, he threw a temper tantrum and canceled.
And so again, God help America when his MAGA supporters finally realize that Democrats (especially Black folks) are not going to let them turn America into a Trumpian dictatorship without a fight … and to the death if necessary.
Related commentaries:
J6 insurrectionists… Fate of democracy…